During the frantic race to the countryside set off by the covid pandemic, the east Somerset town of Bruton recorded the biggest increase in property sales of any country location in the UK, according to the portal Rightmove.

Many were attracted by the presence of a Hauser & Wirth art gallery, Michelin-starred restaurants and a direct (albeit long, at more than two hours) train journey to London Paddington.

It is a counterfactual exercise, but there’s a strong possibility that had Coombe Hill House been launched on the market in the summer of 2021 rather than that of 2025, it would have sold almost instantly. Instead, the distinguished Grade II*-listed late-Georgian house within a short walk of Bruton’s high street is still looking for a buyer via Savills.

Located off Coombe Hill and commanding elevated views over the town, the five-bedroom house has an outdoor swimming pool, a tennis court and stables.

It’s been a much-loved home for three decades, but the London-based vendor is now selling with a heavy heart, says James Toogood of Savills. ‘Coombe Hill is a lovely house in a popular spot that is very private, but it benefits from having everything that Bruton offers on the doorstep.’

Although the house has been looked after with care, he acknowledges that a new owner will want to put their own decorative stamp on the property.

That said, we'd expect many buyers to fall in love with the place just as it is. From the bright blue Aga in the kitchen to the four-poster beds, and from the Victoria greenhouse to the charming gardens and that pool, this is the epitome of the country house dream.

Coombe Hill is now available in lots, with the main house and 10 acres priced at £4.5m or as a whole at £5.25m, which includes Coombe Lodge, a two-bedroom detached cottage located on the other side of the lane with a further 16 acres of agricultural land.

‘I’m cautiously optimistic that things are already looking livelier this year,’ says Toogood.

‘Pricing correctly is vital. Perhaps with the exception of some who bought at the height of the market and are looking to claw back their investment, vendors have adjusted their expectations.’

Coombe Hill House is for sale at £5.25 million — see more details.

Down south in Wiltshire, Alex Lawson of Savills is leading the sale of the prestigious, 1,796-acre Bapton Manor farming and sporting estate, which includes the hamlet of Bapton, a mile from Wylye and 15 miles north-west of Salisbury, at the northern edge of the Cranborne Chase National Landscape, an area of clear chalkstreams and rolling downland.

According to the snappily-titled Victoria County History of Wiltshire—Vol 8 (1965), in the 18th century, Bapton was a community of small farms, which were progressively leased and then bought by the Davis family, until, by 1840, they owned everything except the glebe.

During the 19th century, the Davises and their tenants improved the property both as an agricultural and sporting estate, building houses, cottages and barns and planting woodlands. Bapton became renowned for livestock breeding and, by the early 20th century, a shorthorn beef herd established by the Willis family in the mid 1800s and continued by Sir Cecil Chubb was said to be ‘second to none in the kingdom’.

Sir Cecil, who owned Bapton Manor from 1927 until his death in 1934, is famously known for his purchase of nearby Stonehenge, advertised for sale in Country Life, which he gave to the nation in 1918.

It's quite possible that Sir Cecil bought all his property back then from Country Life, because Bapton, like Stonehenge before it, was also advertised in the magazine:

The current owners acquired the estate in 1968.

Bapton Manor estate is offered either as a whole at a guide price of £25m, or in six lots. A guide of £5.25m is quoted for Lot 1, comprising the handsome, Grade II-listed stone manor house set in 64 acres of water meadows abutting the River Wylye to the north, with 353 yards of single-bank fishing, and, to the east, a number of paddocks currently let on licence.

The house, which dates from the 17th century, was rebuilt in the mid 1700s and extended in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Currently unoccupied and in need of updating, it offers 8,250sq ft of well-proportioned living space on two floors, including an entrance hall, three fine reception rooms, a study, office, kitchen, breakfast room, various utilities, eight bedrooms and five bathrooms.

The lot also includes three cottages, stables and out-buildings, plus a swimming pool and tennis court in need of restoration.

Lot 2, Bapton Manor Farmyard, priced at £1.25m, comprises a four-bedroom farmhouse with an extensive range of modern and traditional farm buildings, some with potential for conversion to alternative commercial use.

Lot 3, the Bapton Fishings, on offer at £1.3m, is 57 acres of pasture, a pair of cottages and 673 yards of double-bank and 924 yards of single-bank fishing on the Wylye. Lot 4, Cowleaze Farm, a former dairy farm, covers a range of farm buildings, a cottage and 61 acres of arable farmland, on offer at £1.1m.

Lot 5, priced at £14.5m, comprises 1,445 acres of gently rolling downland and steep valleys, the sporting rights to which were previously let to a well-known local shoot. Lot 6, on offer at £1.7m, is a separate ring-fenced, 164-acre block of productive arable land on the western edge of the village of Chilmark, with far-reaching panoramic views over the Nadder and Wylye valleys.

Bapton Manor is available as a whole for £25 million or in lots, through Savills — see more information and pictures..

Designed by John Palmer and constructed by various builders between 1789 and 1793, iconic Lansdown Crescent forms the central part of a string of curved terraces that marked the northern boundary of Georgian Bath.

The Grade I-listed crescent, which has spectacular views over other landmark Georgian buildings, including the Royal Crescent, St James’s Square and The Circus, comprises 20 houses, each originally having four floors with servants’ quarters in the basement. And one of them is now up for sale: the Bath office of Knight Frank is handling the sale, at a guide price of £4.5m, of the impeccably renovated 17, Lansdown Crescent.

The house boasts more than 8,000 sq ft of gracious living space, including a 27ft by 24ft drawing room, a convivial withdrawing room, an elegant dining room, a large kitchen/breakfast room, seven bedrooms and four bathrooms.

A substantial lower ground floor houses a snooker room, a further bedroom and storage rooms. Behind the house stands the original, 1,500sq ft coach house, the first floor of which has been converted into office space — ideal for anyone wishing to work from home.

In the late 1990s, current owners Richard and Rebecca Derry-Evans were looking to buy a country house in Mrs Derry-Evans’s native Cornwall when a friend persuaded her to look at 17, Lansdown Crescent, insisting that the house was ‘the talk of town’ — although apparently for all the wrong reasons.

Surprisingly, given the beauty and fame off this spot, that story isn't unusual. A year or two ago a pair of houses further down the street — numbers 7 and 8 — came up for sale as a single lot, with similarly wacky interiors throughout. But there will always be brave souls ready to roll up their sleeves and get places as grand as these back to their best.

The Derry-Evanses were undeterred by the eccentric layout and ‘dodgy’ colour schemes when the couple bought the house in 1999–2000 — but it took a lot of time and energy.

For a solid nine months after the they bought it, three separate teams of painters worked their way through the entire building as Mrs Derry-Evans oversaw the reconfiguration of the interior and coach house.

The Derry-Evanses have clearly loved every moment of their 20-year tenure, but now they are ready to downsize, leaving this very special house for another discerning family to enjoy.

17 Lansdown Crescent is for sale via Savills at £4.5m — see more details and pictures.

Credit: Strutt and Parker

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Credit: Strutt & Parker

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If you're looking for a home – whether as a primary residence or a holiday let – the coast of Britain can be an expensive place.

But if you have been priced out of Padstow or despairing of Dartmouth, there is hope: Flora Watkins has found that there are still places where bargains can be found in towns which are up and coming, but have not yet arrived.

The key things to look for? Decent coffee shops and restaurants, new housing developments and the big national estate agents establishing a presence in the market.

With that in mind, here are five great picks:

Penzance, Cornwall

Why it's worth looking at: Long overshadowed by Padstow and Rock, and seen as little more than a departure point for the Scillies, Penzance is a place with real buzz about it. The New York Times included Penzance in its must-see places of 2017, at 14 out of 52 on its list – ahead of Madagascar and Kyoto. 'It has everything you’ve got at Padstow – except Rick Stein,' says Susan Stuart, who swapped London for Cornwall in 2013 and hasn't looked back.

She's not wrong: the beauty of the area speaks for itself (just look at the picture at the top of this page) while The Shore Restaurant, run by Rick Stein's former protégé Bruce Rennie, is quickly earning a great reputation. Nearby Marazion and Mount's Bay are equally good bets.

What you can get: This Penzance house is a joy – a detached, four-bedroom cottage in 2/3 of an acre that's on the market for the first time since the Second World War. It needs a little work internally but there's nothing too scary, and at £425,000 it seems a real bargain for the right buyer.

Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk

Why it's worth looking at: Daniel Money of Sowerbys claims that Wells is 'shedding its kiss-me-quick hat image', while retaining the arcades and seaside shops which are part of its charm. 'Wells has really grown up, with superb bistros and galleries,' he adds, explaining that people who would once have looked at Blakeney or Burnham Market are now focusing in on it.

What you can get: Tucked away in the heart of Wells-next-the-Sea, this £450,000 house has spacious and elegant proportions. The property has been re-roofed and retains period features, including exposed beams, sash windows and an open fireplace in the sitting room.

Feeling braver? This detached three-bedroom cottage in a third of an acre just up the road from Wells in Wighton is on for the sort of price which once drove the second home market – £275,000 – but needs gutting from top to bottom. It's a rare opportunity: the land around here is protected from development, but sites such as this can be built on so long as the new property isn't too much bigger than the existing structure.

Croyde, Devon

Why it's worth looking at: Christopher Bailey, a partner at Knight Frank’s Exeter office, cites Croyde and the north Cornwall town of Mawgan Porth as his surefire bets to be the next Padstow. 'These are not A-grade addresses by any stretch of the imagination, but I just know they will be,' he says. With terrific surfing

What you can get: Wonderful views of both countryside and sea can be had from this five-bedroom house, which was built in 2013. It's on the market at £885,000 – which sounds like a lot of money until you hear that this mere plot near Padstow is on for £650,000.

Felixstowe, Suffolk

Why it's worth looking at: Round the Suffolk coast at Southwold and Aldeburgh coastal prices are among the highest in Britain, but Felixstowe is full of bargains – thanks in part to a somewhat down-at-heel reputation which is rapidly becoming out of date, with places such as the Ferry Café earning plaudits. Hannah Cooper of Strutt & Parker is a big fan of Old Felixstowe in particular: 'It's very picturesque,' she says. 'We're getting more and more buyers considering it for a second home.'

What you can get: South Beach Mansion, which is on the market at £1.375m and occupies pride of place on the beach at Felixstowe, just a short stroll from the shops.

Kingswear, Devon

Why it's worth looking at: Kingswear, like Brixham and Weymouth, is 'still a bit day-tripper-ish' according to Knight Frank's Christopher Bailey. But it's getting there: 'The shops need to go through another iteration of being spruced up,’ says Baily, but he claims that the town offers essentially the ‘same lovely lifestyle’ of the vastly more expensive Salcombe or Dartmouth.

What you can get: At the end of a private road, the £795,000 Castle Cottage has sublime views of the Dart estuary. Each of the three bedrooms has a balcony with coastal views. A path through woodland, owned by the Landmark Trust, leads to the foreshore.

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Located between the holiday-home havens of Devon and Cornwall and the commuter hotspots of the Home Counties and the Cotswolds, Dorset has a charm entirely of its own, which ensures that, once people have settled there, they rarely choose to leave. The county ticks all the boxes for a family home, so many buyers move there from London, the South- East and the Cotswolds, drawn by its winning combination of top schools, beautiful countryside, pretty villages with vibrant communities, good food and excellent transport links.

Many Dorset family estates are still intact, which has prevented overdevelopment in the county. This ensures that it remains extremely beautiful, but it also means that incomers looking for good family homes don't always have the choice they'd prefer-supply for desirable country houses can be low.

Georgian properties, in particular, are not as plentiful as they are in Hampshire or Oxfordshire, largely because Dorset wasn't fashionable in Georgian times. ‘In counties such as Gloucestershire, there could be 10 houses in a small village area worth £2 million, but here, you're more likely to have a small handful- the manor house, a rectory and a couple of good farmhouses- and this can generate competition,' explains George Wade of buying agents Property Vision (01635 813138). In other words, you won't get much change from £2 million for a good Georgian country house in Dorset with more than 10 acres.

The county has two separate markets. Families cluster inland, around Sherborne and Shaftesbury, where good villages have excellent links that take you into London in just over two hours-most Dorset buyers want easy access to the capital, but don't need to get there every day, or they have a small London property they use during the week. Cerne Abbas, Sandford Orcas and Donhead St Andrew on the Wiltshire/Dorset border are particularly popular villages for this class of property hunter. London is harder to reach from the Jurassic Coast towns, and here buyers tend to be looking for holiday properties, usually around West Bay, Bridport and Lyme Regis. But even second homes are hardly plentiful. Dorset's coastline isn't elongated by estuaries in the same way as Devon's and Cornwall's, and 200 years ago architects were just as suspicious of building a country house on a cliff as they are today. Despite this lack of stock, Simon Barker of Knight Frank in Sherborne says that, although his core market of up to £1.1 million has been quite active so far this year, ‘pricing has to be realistic, not opportunistic.

‘The market is very price-led, and even when supply is short, you have to start with an attractive price-it can always increase if you draw in a few interested parties.' Mr Barker is currently selling a four-bedroom property just five miles from Sherborne for £695,000 (01935 812236).

The limited supply also means that privately available properties make up a considerable portion of what's for sale this year. But, adds Richard Field from Richard Field Property Search (01300 321406), ‘you do pay a premium if you buy privately, because the vendor needs to be reassured they couldn't have achieved a better price on the open market'. Looking ahead, Nick Evans of Chesterton Humberts in Sherborne (01935 812323) believes that what happens in London still makes a difference in Dorset. ‘Our fortunes go, as do many, hand-in-glove with London.'

Despite this link, Dorset certainly feels a long way from the capital. ‘It's still a secret county to a lot of people,' says Simon Neville-Jones from Savills in Wimborne (01202 856800), ‘Dorset retains such charm and character because it's not overly commercialised.'

* Country Houses for sale in Dorset

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